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NOOB here, and new to Subaru’s too. Just bought a 2018 STI with 19s and summer Yokos. I’m assuming that these will be useless in Jan, Feb around here when it gets below or at freezing? Just looking for some experience from SE people. I grew up driving in snow, and love to do it, just thinking my tires may put me in a potentially dangerous situation.

depends... I drove on summers for a few winters without a problem, though if there was snow, it was pretty much taking the wife's car. Ice is ice.. it doesn't matter if you've got all seasons or summers.

If you're going to be west of I-77/US 421 , Jan to April you need MINIMUM All-seasons.

West of Morganton/Wilkesboro you NEED a set of SNOW tires if you're going up 321/421.

Basically the Blue Ridge Parkway is SnowTire/All-Terrain Tire Line. Especially if you travel off the Main 4-lane roads.

I live 20 min from the TN line and I run Studded Snow tires to get up my road and driveway in Winter. Shaded spots under trees/hills in winter, refreeze and get super sketchy on my hill. 4000ft elevation, gets breezy.

Hopefully the yoko’s are better than the dunlop’s. Im in Raleigh and they were sketchy anytime the temp was under 60*+ and there was any moisture on the roads. Seems like you have some good answers here though (aside from mine &#129315

I have driven year-round on RE070s, RT615s, RE11Rs, and RE01Rs (including to Feb autoxes).

They do lose grip and are not as good in the cooler conditions. I would not bomb around on them or drive them in snow. However, I have not had issues driving them at that time of year either (tire doesn't crack/fail).

I would not run tires I competed in at those temperatures (except for the day of), but in NC unless it is snowing, I have never really seen a reason to change out tires/go to a dedicated second set.

If I did live in the mountains, I would have some Methods (or STi brembo clearing wheels) that I used for rallyX/winter, and put those on for the few times in a year the summers were not safe. Albiet, I have not lived in the mountains/foothills.. Maybe then you would need 2 sets? I have only ever lived in the Piedmont.

I personally have Star Specs for summer and some Yokohama snows for winter...because they're left overs from before I moved down here. That from my three winters here, ice is pretty common. This will depend on where in the state you live.

I'm also in Raleigh. Summer tires with AWD probably will only perform a little bit worse than all seasons. I actually find that street-rated summer tires rated for good wet traction perform as good as your typical all-season tires do and in some cases, better. It's only when it gets really snowy or icy that you'd want something different and frankly, you should just get actual winter tires.

One year my wife, who worked in the ER and couldn't skip work due to weather got stuck in the ice with her FWD Ford Escape on Firestone all seasons (a decent set, can't remember specific type).

I was able to get out of the neighborhood with my WRX on Yokohama S-drives (summer tires at the time with particularly good wet traction)....It was as if AWD on street rated summer tires was BETTER than 2wd on standard all seasons.

Perhaps off-road or in loose snow or mush the knobbier tire design would prevail but I found the harder all-season compound to be worthless compared to just having two more wheels driven.

Yes, actual winter tires is more important than AWD, but AWD is more important than summer vs. all season IMO until you spend so much money on the All-seasons that you might as well buy a set of steelies and actual winter tires and not have any compromise.